Avoiding a Bad Hire on Your Sales Team
A 3-year study of hiring managers revealed that only 19% of new hires were successful. Most of us have experienced a bad hire at some point! 
The 81% of unsuccessful hires were successful in other companies, had great resumes with respected educations, interviewed well, seemed to match the company culture, and possessed superb skills and knowledge.
Why did they not succeed in the job they were hired for?
Most bad hires are good people hired for the wrong job. When an individual lacks a critical strength needed for success, no amount of training will raise performance to an acceptable level. When you hire a smart, hard-working salesperson who lacks the cognitive abilities and hard-wired traits needed to succeed in your job – you hire someone who can almost do the job.
Every job has a few critical factors that are absolutely necessary for success. When factors can’t be described in behavioral terms, they are open to interpretation and cannot be observed or managed. Instead of words like dependable, team player or self-starter, it’s more important to use observable critical abilities such as get appointments, follow-up effectively, handle sales rejection, close sales, and build customer relationships.
To avoid making a bad hire
It’s important to identify and list vital job behaviors versus how most job descriptions or job postings are written.
When asked, even professional interviewers feel their exceptional hiring rate is only 75%, and their really good rate only 60%. How do you improve your personal hiring rate?
- Identify and list specific job behaviors need for success in your position.
- Rate/rank them as Critical, Important or Other.
- Assess to screen out anyone who lacks one or more Critical traits.
- Screen out candidates who lack any critical specialized skills or knowledge required.
- Conduct interviews using assessment results, resumes and interview questions to select from the remaining best candidates.
